We Want Media

Internet hotspots (You Tube, MySpace, etc) are becoming catalogs of history, media, and art. In other words: one stop inspiration by cultural iconography from all ages.

Momus points out brilliantly that the age of “Web 2.0” is becoming more than a way to produce and nurture the “new” forms of media. It’s also quickly filling itself with the art and media of the past; becoming a sort of visual continuum of human artistic endeavors. What once was obscure, and available to the select few, is now available to anyone with the desire to go look. What’s the result? Artists, media creators of all kinds, are able to draw from a vast pool of inspiration; one that’s growing closer and closer to a “complete” (if that’s at all possible) contents and reference for all “art.”

A budding artist’s influences, today, have the potential to be informed by a plethora of sources. Geography, historical time periods, and languages are becoming irrelevant. When placed next to their contemporary counterparts, the meanings of the advertisements Momus points to are rejuvenated and transformed by their aging process.

But I would take the analysis a step farther.

Ideally, what this kind of freedom of information allows is transcendence from the traditional means of identifying oneself artistically. An artist traditionally rooted in a geographic area would be influenced by what is around him/her culturally and where they could travel in their lifetime. Their art, essentially, is a product of their experiences of their environments. The modern artist’s mind can be in a million places at once, being spontaneously informed by media from the farthest reaches of time and space. Again, an ideal, but interesting nonetheless.

We can see this new artistic emergence strongest, I believe, in music. Community services like MySpace music, access to ancient videos and interviews on You Tube, and the digital tools to create almost any sound desirable allow budding talent to interact with each other. They're able to share ideas from all collective sources, and thus create truly novel and progressive music. Podcasts are available broadcasting every kind of music imaginable, from the utterly obscure to the newest in new. Kids aren’t replicating genres anymore; they’re informed by them, digest them, break them down, and ultimately, create new ones in their own image.

Thought sparker via Click Opera